Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are _very_ clearly acting as publishers as well. Then they should be held liable for every post/tweet that goes on their platform! Will they be willing to accept that liability like the media houses do? You can sue the media house if it posts something that is false. You can't sue Facebook for a post someone put on it. Facebook will call itself a platform and deny taking liability for someone's post. > It does…
The post office (Twitter) is _already_ opening every envelope. That is how the personalized feeds are created. Do you think the post office should be able to check the content of your message to determine whether to deliver it to you tomorrow, next week, now (if the sender pays more)? This is a much more complicated issue than a simple publisher-platform determination. The only thing that is clear is that Twitter, Fa…
Oh I meant humans opening the envelope, reading and manipulating the content. Not just opening it. I should have been more clear. The feeds are still created out of reading it but it is not being tampered with. A publisher does still collect and read reports provided by the reporter. However, the decision to publish is only based on verification of facts because the ultimate liability rests with the publisher not the reporter. If the publisher still goes ahead (some do) with fabricated news they can and will be held liable for it. The reporter is not held liable for it. The max that can happen to the reporter is getting fired from the media house.
But with Twitter, once it attaches it's opinion to the tweet, it is essentially indulging in fact-checking. That is what a publisher does.
That is why I said that the key difference between a platform and a publisher is the step of "verification". With a feed you are still being shown unverified user generated content. The onus of verification rests on your shoulders. But once Twitter decides to verify a tweet, the onus of verification now lies on Twitter's shoulders.
> I do agree with you that new regulation is critical to help manage these systems.
Exactly. Either content is regulated or not regulated. Moderation I agree with because those are clearly defined by law (like no calling for violence, racial abuse, bomb threats, child pornography etc). But anything more than that needs to be regulated. Else these social media companies will have too much power in their hands. They can censor anything at will. I have seen many of my comments in Youtube get deleted just for the mention of the word "China". I never get an alert for it. Only after I refresh the page do I see that it has been removed. And I live in a free country not bound by any dictatorial laws. So I am sure that Youtube algorithms have some bias added into it. Censorship is so prevalent now that people are gaming the Youtube algorithms by using words like "Chyna". I remember during the initial days of the Coronavirus outbreak Youtube was removing any mention of Coronavirus and restricting/demonetizing any videos that spoke about the issue. So much so that even legitimate videos got shadow banned. So many content creators started using the word "ramen" for Coronavirus.
This sort of censorship is not good. This is not what internet was built for!